


Love in the Dark

by mombasas



Series: the apartment AU [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Loud Sex, M/M, Sleep Deprivation, Steve Rogers's Competitive Streak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-11 17:30:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mombasas/pseuds/mombasas
Summary: The guy who lives in the apartment next to Steve's is a nocturnal sex addict with a complete lack of volume control, and Steve's not going to take that lying down. Or, well.(Neighbors-with-a-shared-bedroom-wall AU in which Steve and Tony get into a not-so-passive passive-aggressive sex war, despite never having actually met.)





	Love in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Title's from "Total Eclipse of the Heart." As the summary suggests, both Steve & Tony have sex with other people (not canonical characters, and it's not graphic) in the course of the story.

Steve lies in his bed, staring up at the dark ceiling and wishing passionately for death. After a few long seconds, he flips over and clamps his pillow tightly over his ears. It’s thin and does nothing to muffle the sound of a headboard slamming against the wall behind his head, or the moaning that accompanies it. He makes a strangled noise of frustration and flips back over. In his darkened room, the noises seem impossibly loud. The alarm clock on his bedside table is showing 2:27am. Steve has an interview at 9:00. He runs the math. If he falls asleep right now, he’ll get five hours of sleep.

He’s nervous as hell about the interview, even though Bucky’s been rolling his eyes and telling him to relax all week. Pratt’s MFA program is one of the best in the country. Even if he does make it in, he’ll have to scrape by on a grad student stipend; if he isn’t admitted, he’ll have to find a second job just to make rent. Maybe a third. Their rent is New York expensive, though it’s not as astronomical as it could be. He and Bucky lucked out with this place, or at least, Steve thought so before he discovered that the guy who lives in 7B is, apparently, a nocturnal sex addict with a complete lack of volume control.

It’s not always sex. Sometimes it’s music that starts out as an incomprehensible screech of noise but eventually resolves itself to, Steve is pretty sure, Black Sabbath. Once it was the sound of one metal thing hitting a different metal thing for over two hours, constant but arrhythmic enough to make Steve grit his teeth until his jaw ached. Sometimes 7B just talks, his voice a low murmur through the wall, getting louder and softer as he paces around the bedroom like he’s just talking something through to himself, not practicing a speech or taking a phone call. The talking isn’t so bad; it’s actually almost soothing, like white noise. Steve’s fallen asleep to it more than once.

The sex, though, is different. After three months of this, Steve knows all the sounds 7B makes: the muffled hum of speech, the moan, the variations in the velocity and force with which the headboard hits the wall. It’s not the same partner every time; usually women, a handful of men. And it’s not like the guy has sex every night, though it happens often enough that Steve feels privately defensive about his own nonexistent dating life. Bucky, whose bedroom is on the far side of the apartment, had thought Steve was exaggerating until Steve woke him up and dragged him bodily into the room at 3:00 in the morning. He’d looked sort of uncomfortable but mostly impressed until Steve had hissed, “ _Imagine trying to sleep through this!_ ” at him. Then he’d looked appropriately horrified.

Steve thinks about getting out of bed to find his headphones. He knows from experience that they won’t block the sound completely, but he’s desperate enough to try again. The couch would also be an option, but Clint is crashing there tonight. His apartment is smaller than Steve and Bucky’s and he’s got a weird thing going on with the Russians that own the building, so he sometimes ends up sleeping over. Even if Clint wasn’t there, though, Steve knows he probably wouldn’t be sleeping on the couch. It’s a pride thing. He pays money for this bedroom. So much money. He’s not going to be chased out of it just because 7B has an overactive sex drive and no sense of decency.

Just as he resigns himself to it, the headboard slamming picks up tempo. There’s a high-pitched moan. _Yes_ , Steve cheers, beyond caring about how creepy it might be. _Finally. Finish up already._ After a minute, the sound stops completely and Steve’s room falls abruptly silent. It’s almost too abrupt. Steve listens hard,  suddenly hyperaware of his own slow breathing. The silence stretches on.

 _Oh my god_ , he thinks nonsensically. _What if 7B just_ died.

Then the opening riffs of “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” echo through the wall. Steve smothers a scream and covers his face with the pillow.

 

He gives up on real sleep around 5:00 and lies there, drifting in that half-conscious zone, until his alarm goes off at 7:10. The smell of bacon is already filling the apartment, and he scrubs his hands over his face roughly before getting out of bed.

Bucky’s ass is planted on their sagging couch, which is still draped in a tangle of sheets. He’s got a bowl of Froot Loops in his metal hand and a glazed, early-morning look in his eyes. _Dog Cops_ is on the TV, volume low and closed captioning on. Clint’s bustling around the small kitchen behind him. Steve checks to make sure he has his hearing aids in before he greets him.

“Pancakes are almost done,” says Clint. Steve musters the energy to look pointedly at Bucky’s cereal.

“Appetizer,” Bucky grunts. Then he looks at Steve properly. “What’s wrong with your face?”

Steve makes an inarticulate noise of panic, frustration, and exhaustion, dropping into a chair. Bucky winces sympathetically. “Dude, again?”

Instead of answering, Steve rests his head on the kitchen table. “I’m going to die,” he tells it. “I’m going to fall asleep in the middle of this interview and end up working at the Bean until I’m ninety.”

“How much sleep did you get?” Bucky demands.

“I got… three. Three sleeps,” Steve says. “Probably. Ish.”

“Yikes,” says Clint. He slides a plate piled high with perfectly-golden pancakes next to Steve’s nose. There’s bacon on the side. “Eat this.”

“Too nervous,” Steve informs the table. “Oh, god. What if I throw up on an interviewer?” Peripherally, he notes the creak of the couch springs as Bucky gets up to sit across from him at the table. His concerned gaze is like a physical weight, and Steve rolls his head to squint at him.

“You’re not gonna throw up on your interviewers.”

“What if they take one look at me and realize they made a huge mistake?” Steve knows how pathetic he’s being. He absolutely cannot help it.

“Believe me, buddy,” says Clint. “‘Mistake’ is not what people think when they look at you.”

 

After a full breakfast and a shower, Steve feels more like himself. He brushes his teeth and dresses quickly, combing his hair and shrugging on the only suit jacket he owns. It’s a little small, stretching at the shoulders and an inch short in the sleeves, but he purchased it from a Goodwill right at the tail end of his growth spurt and he likes the brown wool blend. It’s spring, but the weather is still cool enough to wear it. He stares at his reflection in the chipped mirror. “Get it together, Rogers,” he orders himself.

Out in the living room, Clint and Bucky both have their Moral Support faces on. 

“Steve, you’re gonna do great,” says Bucky. “Seriously. They’re gonna love you.” Clint nods in agreement.

“Okay,” replies Steve nonsensically. “Cool, I’m gonna—” _Go pass out now_ , he doesn’t say. Once it becomes apparent that he won’t be finishing that sentence, or moving under his own power, Bucky claps him on the shoulder, hands him his portfolio, and pushes him out the door.

When he lets himself back into the apartment three hours later, Clint and Bucky are still parked on the couch. They both twist to look at him as he tosses his keys into the bowl on the counter and strips out of the suit jacket.

“Well?” Bucky asks impatiently. Steve feels a huge smile break over his face.

“I’m, uh. I’m pretty sure I’m in,” he says. It won’t be official for another week or two, but the nice lady who’d sat on the left side of the couch had winked and given him a covert thumbs-up right before he left, and the interview itself had felt almost comfortable, like they were really interested in his opinion on mixed media work and photorealism. Clint whoops in celebration, and Bucky actually levers himself over the back of the couch to wrap Steve up in a back-slapping, bone-creaking hug.

“Beers!” Clint says, making for the fridge. “I was going to get you champagne but then I remembered we’re all broke as fuck, so.” He tosses a PBR to Steve, who catches it easily but hesitates before he cracks it open.

“It’s like 10:30,” he says. “On a Tuesday.”

“Yeah, well, I have work tonight.” Bucky opens his own and taps it against Steve’s before taking a long swig. “We’ll be classy about it this weekend. See if Natasha and Sam are around.”

“Yeah,” says Steve, “okay.” He can’t stop smiling, feels punch drunk on relief and, yeah, a little excitement. Neither of his parents had even gone to college, and the idea of pursuing an MFA—pursuing art as a career, not just a hobby to be squeezed in around the edges of whatever 9-to-5 he ended up working—is something he’s wanted so badly, for so long, that he rarely allows himself to think about it, afraid that he’ll somehow jinx himself by admitting it. Today, though. Today he can admit to wanting it, just for a while. His happiness burns the exhaustion right out of him.

“I’m gonna do something about it,” Steve announces six drinks later. “About him. 7B.” Their Ikea coffee table is covered in empties and he’s feeling the kind of proactive energy that comes from a large quantity of cheap beer.

“You’re gonna fight him,” Bucky predicts.

“You’re gonna file a noise complaint and _then_ fight him,” Clint counters.

“What? No,” Steve says. It’s like they don’t know him at all. “I’m gonna have loud sex back at him.”

Clint and Bucky blink at him, eerily in sync.

“Right,” Clint says finally. “Of course. That’s. That’s what you do in this situation.” Bucky makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh.

Steve’s eyes narrow. They’re not taking this seriously enough. “I’m going to win,” he informs them.

“Excuse me,” says Clint in a strangled voice. “I have to go text Natasha.” 

 

*

 

Getting disinherited by your family at the age of 17 is a big accomplishment, but only if you make something of yourself afterwards. Tony’s been working on that last part for six years now. Mostly it’s involved taking overtime shifts at Mitchell’s Auto Repair on 39th and falling asleep on his keyboard when he gets home, but whatever. He’ll get there.

His apartment, 7B, is what he calls “organized chaos” and Pepper calls “an unmitigated disaster” whenever she comes over. It’s small, is the thing, and he has… a lot of stuff. Most of it is disassembled and a good portion of it does look like trash, so he sort of understands where she’s coming from, even though each and every piece of scrap metal is absolutely crucial to his work, as are all seven of his socket wrenches. Even without the clutter, though, the apartment is a mess. The shower breaks at least once a month no matter how many times he repairs it and the walls, floor, _and_ ceiling are paper-thin, which means he gets to listen to 8B’s telenovelas and 7A’s TiVo’d WWE fights, often simultaneously. Sometimes the heat turns on in the middle of the summer and won’t shut off for days. It’s horrible.

Tony loves it, with a fierce, almost childish pride. It’s his: his rent, his faulty heating system, his shitty water pressure. He pays for it all with his meager mechanic’s salary and the occasional side job doing repair work. He could probably afford a nicer place than this if he saved up a bit more, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. A man has needs. At this precise moment, a man needs, like, 50 yards of high-grade filament wire for the new AI he’s illegally installing in his apartment ceiling.

Mitchell’s is tiny, squashed between a janitorial supplies warehouse and a coin-op laundromat. Tony spends his days and sometimes his nights repairing Hondas and translating phrases like “it makes this noise like _tingtingtingting,_ ” and “when I tap the brakes it feels like it’s screaming” into something that can be fixed with a toolbox and a tire gauge. He has no idea who Mitchell is, if he ever even existed, but his boss is a good guy who pays him a fair wage and doesn’t care if he stays late to use the workbench. Tony’s not gonna do the bigger metalworking projects at the apartment. He’s not an asshole, that shit is loud.

Tonight, though, Tony's happy to leave the shop and head home. He moves on autopilot, twisting his wrist hard and banging the thin wood right above the lock twice to make it disengage. It’s a Thursday night and he’s exhausted, having pulled both a very illegal twelve-hour shift at the garage and an accidental all-nighter the night before. The subway ride from Mitchell’s to the apartment is just long enough to leave him sleepy, eyelids heavy and brain finally slowed to a crawl. He strips as he moves, not bothering to turn on a light. Boots get kicked off by the couch. He unzips and shrugs out of his stained coveralls, leaving them on the hallway floor and tiredly throwing his t-shirt in their general direction once he manages to pull it off. Then he collapses onto the bed and does some undignified squirming to shift himself under most of the covers. It’s still unmade from the last time he crashed in it. He has no idea when that was, but it probably hasn’t been more than a week. He’ll remember tomorrow. Right now he’s not capable of anything besides succumbing to the slow drag into sleep. _Bed is amazing_ , he thinks dimly, eyes slipping shut. _More time in bed. Propulsion system to maneuver bed throughout apartment_.

Then something thuds loudly into the wall behind his head, and Tony’s eyes shoot open as his heart temporarily vacates his body. There’s a second thud, softer this time, then a low laugh. A moan.

 _No_ , he thinks. _No no no_. For the first time in so, so long, he was going to sleep in this bed. Pepper was going to be so proud. He was not going to stay up until 4:00, he was not going to get caught up in reprogramming an Amazon Echo, he was not going to pick someone up and bring them back to—

He pauses. If he can hear 7C this clearly, there’s no way 7C hasn’t been able to hear him.

The thought makes something hot uncurl in his stomach.  _Oh_ , he thinks.

Tony vaguely remembers the two guys who moved into 7C a while back—three months? four? a year? literally any of those options could be true, he’s not particularly observant when he’s working on a project—and it’s with a rush of relief that he decides whoever is getting fucked against the wall is probably not old Mr. Hernandez, the retiree who lived there when Tony moved in. On that cheering thought, he lets his hand slide down his chest and under the waistband of his boxers, before he hesitates. Is he going to feel guilty about this? He takes a quick minute to assess. The answer, as usual, is no.

He’s so tired that it’s easy to get lost in the sounds, easy to patch together a blurry visual in his mind based on the noises. It’s a woman moaning, which means that unless she is like, super strong, the one who’s doing the fucking is probably one of the 7C guys. Tony can’t remember what either of them looks like (was one of them blond, maybe?) but apparently that does _not_ matter to his dick. He closes his eyes, keeping his hand tight and a little rough, too lazy to even rummage around for lotion. He likes wall sex, likes the feeling of being pinned and held. It’s hard to find someone who can actually manage it for more than a minute or two, though. Apparently 7C can. Tony bites hard into his bottom lip, changing his grip so that his thumb swipes over the head on every upstroke, bracing his feet on the mattress so he can cant his hips upwards. He hasn’t bothered with trying to stay quiet since boarding school, but he falls back into the habit easily now that he’s sure 7C would hear him if he made too much noise. This isn’t going to take long. The pitch of the woman’s moans changes, and he finds himself listening intently, trying to tell if the guy is making any sound at all. There’s nothing, just the woman’s gasps. Tony reaches and manages to press his free palm against the wall, which is shaking just slightly. He imagines 7C’s hand pressing against the same spot on the other side. The woman says something, a name. It doesn’t make it past the wall, but a second later, he hears 7C’s voice for the first time. He curses, just once. Tony’s orgasm catches him by surprise.

As he’s coming down, body still buzzing pleasantly, the rhythmic thudding picks up again, loud and insistent. Almost like the wall is the point, not the sex. In fact, it’s almost… deliberate.

Tony’s eyes pop back open, post-orgasm haze obliterated. _No fucking way._

 

*

 

Steve’s pretty sure he’s never been this turned on, or had this little sleep, in his life. It’s making him crazy. Somehow, even though he’s having more sex than he has in recent memory, he’s feeling more frustrated than ever. He’s brought a few people back to the apartment and every time, the sex is somehow _just_ shy of satisfying. He’s a toxic mix of angry arousal and exhaustion basically 24/7.

“My body cannot take much more of this,” he tells Natasha one morning when she stops by the Bean.

“Yeah, must be real tough.”

It’s been two weeks. Sometimes he can hear 7B talking as he fucks. Steve can’t make out the words, the walls aren’t quite that thin, but the low rumble of sound is enough, breaking off in places but always picking up again.

“Sleep deprivation is a form of torture,” he informs Natasha.

“Yes, I know,” she replies absently, dumping an enormous spoonful of sugar into her coffee. She’s leaning against the counter and looking extremely put-together, unlike Steve, who has just started his shift and has already spilled macchiato down his shirt. “Twenty-four hours of sleep dep is equivalent to a blood alcohol content of oh-point-one percent.” Steve moves to put a few more inches between them. Nobody actually knows what Natasha does for a living but every once in a while she comes out with something like this. Last month when Sam locked his keys in his car, she showed up with a slim jim and had the door open in less than fifteen seconds.

“Am I going to die?” Steve asks. “It feels like I’m going to die.”

Natasha finishes stirring, taps her spoon against the rim of the mug twice, and fixes him with a look. “You could always stop.”

“If he doesn’t want everyone to know what he’s doing, he shouldn’t do it so loudly,” Steve says primly.

“Unbelievable. You’re a disaster, Rogers. I’m going to work, enjoy your exhibitionist kink,” she adds, extra loudly. Two customers look up in curiosity and Steve’s face flushes.

“ _Natasha_ ,” he hisses, but she either doesn’t hear him or purposely ignores his voice as she heads out of the coffee shop. _Probably the latter_ , Steve thinks. He’s gotten pretty good at making noise lately.

 

*

 

Two weeks later, Tony nearly gives himself third-degree burns when a drawn-out moan comes from 7C and he fumbles the soldering iron he’s holding. He escapes with a medium-sized burn across his left palm that hurts like a bitch but probably doesn’t need medical attention. It’s not something he’d usually do, but he made Pepper some promises after the welding incident they don’t talk about, so he shoots off a text, listens to the wall for a long, miserably arousing minute—it’s a guy this time, further confirming his suspicions that 7C swings both ways and is also pretty damn quiet, just with a propensity for loud partners—and goes to take a very cold shower.

It’s been weeks since that first incident and since then, it’s rare for a day to pass without hearing something from 7C. It’s not always sex. Sometimes he plays music, loud and pointed like he’s got a stereo aimed at the wall from 3 inches away. Once he watched _Band of Brothers_ for five hours straight. That made Tony wonder if he’d been using headphones every other time he watched TV in his room, and feel a little chagrined because he’s certainly never bothered using headphones himself. And it doesn’t always happen when Tony’s trying to sleep, which is only every other night, anyway. Three nights ago 7C had listened to what sounded like Beyoncé’s entire discography and Tony hadn’t even bothered trying to block it out, had let the bass line fill up his bedroom while he dissected the Echo he’s been rewiring into self-awareness. It had felt more comforting than intrusive, taking up space in Tony’s cluttered, empty apartment in a way that even his own music can’t always manage.

The sex, though, is the absolute worst. It turns out that when he’s not already half-asleep, like the first time, Tony does feel a little guilty jerking off to it, sometimes guilty enough that he genuinely can’t bring himself to do it even if he’s so turned on it’s physically painful. It’s only gotten harder, pun very much intended, now that he feels like—like there’s an actual conversation, or something, going on. Not that Tony could tell you what the fuck they’re saying. And he does worry that the sleep deprivation is making him hallucinate. But he sometimes feels as though he can guess at what 7C is feeling, or tell when 7C is laughing at him or genuinely annoyed. Tony is losing his mind. Three days ago, not in the mood to leave the apartment and find a stranger willing to help him take his turn in the revenge sex cycle, Tony had settled for digging out the power drill and finally getting around to wiring speakers into the bedroom ceiling. At 3:15 in the morning.

This is apparently 7C’s payback. Tony can’t say it’s undeserved.

By the time he opens the apartment door an hour later, 7C has gone mercifully silent. Pepper’s wearing leggings and a massive hoodie, hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. It doesn’t look like she’s been to sleep yet, but she’s double-fisting two enormous to-go mugs and has her laptop bag hanging from one shoulder and a thick stack of files wedged under the opposite arm. He squints at her, and then at the microwave clock. Ah. It’s 2:44 on a Saturday morning. That would do it. Pepper works insane hours. It’s one of the things they have in common. Possibly it’s also a sign that neither of them should be trying to work through this right now, but a little sleep deprivation has never stopped Tony before, and Pepper’s not nearly as virtuous as she sometimes pretends to be.

“Can I come in,” she says flatly. Tony realizes that he’s been staring at her for an indeterminate amount of time.

“Augh. Yes.” He moves away from the door, taking notice of the state of the living room for the first time. “Uh.” He moves a battered cardboard box of circuit boards off the couch so Pepper can sit. She pushes one of the coffee mugs at him in return and then holds out one hand expectantly. Tony snorts but lets her check over the burn, small fingers gentle against the shiny edges. “Will I ever play the piano again?” he asks once she’s done.

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Don’t be a baby. I have to get through these files by Monday. Tell me what’s going on.”

He tells her what’s going on.

“That is completely inappropriate, Tony!” Pepper says, scandalized, before immediately grilling him for more information. “Oh, wow,” she says when he’s done. “That’s actually kind of hot.”

“He’s a workplace safety violation!” Tony says, a little wildly. He’s distantly aware that he hasn’t slept in over 24 hours and there’s motor grease in his hair, but that all seems secondary to the real problem, which is—

“Why were you soldering in your bedroom?”

“For the—” Tony gestures vaguely. Pepper is not allowed to know about the sentient AI he’s been working on until it’s done and she can no longer stop him. “For a thing! Not the point, Pep! The guy is a hazard.”

“Well, I don’t know, Tony, get some ear plugs or—”

“—understand how you’re being so calm about this, he—”

“—file a noise complaint or _something_ —”

“—actually ruining my life!”

“I mean, have you—”

“And the stamina, okay, his stamina is completely inhuman—”

“—even talked to him?”

“What?” Tony blinks. “What, no. Why would I do that?”

Pepper’s face shifts to something like exasperation. It’s a familiar expression. “It’s been, what, a month? Two?” He nods. “You look like shit, Tony.” Tony bites back his instinctive response, which is to say that Pepper also looks like shit. For one thing, he’s an asshole but he tries to be less of one with her. For another, that would be a bald-faced lie because Pepper is always radiant and beautiful and perfect, even when the bags under her eyes are more like luggage and she’s scowling at him like she is now.

“I’m not getting in the middle of whatever this is.” Pepper gestures between Tony and his bedroom. “But I think you probably need to talk to him. Or have sex with him. Maybe both.”

“What?” Tony’s aware that he’s staring at her like she’s crazy, but he can’t seem to stop.

“I’m serious,” Pepper says. “Get it out of your system, or whatever.”

“There’s nothing _in_ my system,” he protests. Pepper raises an eyebrow, a wicked smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

“You’re disgusting, Potts,” Tony says, but he’s laughing, and for at least a few hours he forgets how wound up he is.

 

*

 

On Sunday nights Steve does his laundry in the building basement, which means that on Sunday nights he also helps Mrs. Nguyen with hers. Mostly this involves listening to stories about her late husband, watching her fold a lot of elastic-waistband slacks, and placing folded clothes carefully in the ancient wicker basket she brings with her. She doesn’t trust him to get the folding right. Depending on the night, her husband was either an air traffic controller, a police detective, or a building inspector. Sometimes she uses the present tense when she talks about him. She’s lived in the building for decades.

“Mrs. Nguyen,” he says, struck by a sudden thought, “do you know who lives in 7B?”

Her brow creases in thought. “Anthony,” she says decisively. Her wrinkled hands keep moving as she speaks, and Steve takes the folded blouse on automatic when she hands it over. “What a nice boy. Very handsome.” She looks at Steve speculatively.

“What does he, um. What does he do?”

“He is a disinherited millionaire,” she announces.

“Huh,” says Steve. His heart sinks a little. It’s going to be one of her less-lucid nights, then.

“And he fixed my sink,” she adds, matter-of-fact. “Benjamin used to do that, of course. He was a building inspector, you know, he worked for the city.”

Steve stays until the basket is full, insists on carrying it upstairs for her, accepts her fond pat on his hand when he walks her down the hallway to 3A. That night, 7B-maybe-Anthony is quiet, but Steve still finds himself attuned to the sounds of him shifting around the room, trying to put them together into something that makes sense. The creak of a floorboard, the scrape of a heavy chair further from the wall, the distant rush of a faucet. He’s trying to read but he finds himself caught on the same sentence. 7B finally climbs into bed around 1:00. Steve sighs and shuts his book, rolling over to slide it onto his bedside table.

The springs of his mattress creak loudly. Steve freezes. 7B’s been shifting restlessly in bed but now he’s fallen completely silent. Steve has the insane impression that 7B is listening just as hard as he is. It makes his face heat, for no reason he can discern besides maybe the embarrassment of having been caught eavesdropping. Which is absolutely pointless; they’re both _well_ past being embarrassed about that. After a while, the charged nature of the silence gives way to something more comfortable and Steve finds his body relaxing into the bed, his mind drifting towards sleep. He hazily imagines 7B doing the same thing less than a foot away, and it should be weird (it _is_ weird) but it’s also sort of comforting. And, also weirdly, a little arousing. _Do_ not _jerk off, you massive weirdo_ , he tells himself sternly, and eventually manages to nod off.

7B, on the other hand, apparently gives up on sleep around 4 in the morning. He announces that decision via Led Zeppelin IV, and Steve, jolted out of a _really_ good dream, feels perfectly justified in hating him again.

 

*

 

On Wednesday night, 7C waits until Tony and Ana-from-the-bodega have just gotten to the good part to blast “Total Eclipse of the Heart” at maximum volume. Tony laughs hard enough that he falls off the bed and ends up with a spectacular bruise on his ass. Ana-from-the-bodega is less amused. Tony watches her yank her shirt back on and resigns himself to getting his beer elsewhere for a while. _And I need you now tonight!_  Bonnie Tyler bellows through the wall _. And I need you more then e-e-ver!_ He can’t even bring himself to be annoyed. He’s been bringing people back to the apartment but it’s felt weirdly robotic, something he does to make whatever’s happening between him and 7C keep happening. He’s not all that sorry she’s leaving, too busy fighting back a grin. 7C is a  _dick_. 

 

A few days after the Bonnie Tyler incident, Tony stumbles into the building, desperate to get to his apartment and catch a few hours of sleep. It’s only six o’clock but he’s exhausted, tired enough that he’s willing to compromise his pride and crash on the couch if 7C is feeling punchy. Tony is walking a thin, thin line of desperation. He’s been pulling double shifts at Mitchell’s, and the money is good, but New York is going through a heatwave and between that and the lack of sleep, it’s leaving him feeling shaky at the edges. Ms. Woodson and her three kids are on their way out and he holds the door open, dimly registering the guy standing in the small mailbox alcove off the main stairwell. He’s humming to himself, and Tony has one foot on the staircase before his brain works out what the song is. He freezes.

“Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I’m only falling apart,” the guy sings under his breath as he searches for his mail keys. Tony’s pretty sure he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He must make some kind of noise, because the guy’s head— _7C’s head_ —snaps up.

“ _You_ ,” Tony accuses, eyes narrowed. Possibly in other circumstances this moment would be embarrassing for one and/or both of them, but Tony is too exhausted to feel anything other than anger and, awkwardly, arousal. Maybe it’s Pavlovian by now, a reaction to even thinking about the guy. 7C is watching him warily, and Tony can tell the exact moment he connects the dots because a red flush washes across his cheeks.

“Oh god,” the guy says. “Are you 7B.”

It’s not a question but Tony nods jerkily anyway. “Yeah,” he says, stepping back off the staircase and, for reasons he cannot even begin to comprehend, sticking his hand out. “Tony.”

7C shakes it on autopilot. It’s like they’re at a business meeting, except not like that at all, because Tony is running on two hours of sleep and also he’s pretty sure he heard 7C jerk off really quietly last night.

“Steve,” 7C says. He is, Tony notices, super hot. Like, super, super hot. Literally, because it’s like 90 degrees out and his palm is a little sweaty, but also, his shoulders.

There’s an uneasy silence. Steve looks exhausted and Tony abruptly realizes that his anger is gone. The awkward arousal is sticking around, though.

“I’m sorry—” Steve starts.

“Listen—” Tony says at the same time, but stops. Steve makes a little “you go ahead” gesture. “Listen,” Tony says again. “I just. I’m sorry?” He runs a hand nervously through his hair. “I, uh. I didn’t mean to—”

“Right, no, of course,” Steve says quickly. “Me neither.”

“Great,” Tony says. “So we’ll just, uh, we’ll both stop—”

“Yeah, yes, totally.”

“Great,” Tony repeats. He reaches blindly for the stair railing behind him. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this wrong-footed in his life. “Okay. Um. Have a good night?”

“Uh, yes. You too,” Steve says. His face is bright red. 

 

Tony doesn’t remember walking up the seven flights of stairs to his apartment or jimmying the door open, but he comes back to himself when he makes it into the living room. It's filled with the strange, reddish glow of twilight. Tony sits on the couch. Then he stands up again and paces to the kitchen counter, scrubbing a hand over his head. _This is stupid_ , he thinks. _This is so stupid_. He doesn’t even _know_ 7C. Steve. They’ve never spoken, really. His heart is pounding and his palms are damp, although, to be fair, that could be because the A/C is on the fritz again. All the windows are open but there’s no breeze, everything hazy and still with the evening heat. He crosses the kitchen and sits back down. _Don’t do it. Do not do it. Just go to sleep._ Surprisingly, it’s that thought that pushes him over the edge: the idea of lying in his bed, knowing that Steve is less than a foot away, completely untouchable. On the other side of that fucking wall. _This is so stupid_ , he thinks again, half-savage, half-desperate, but he’s already standing back up, already moving to the door.

When he swings it open, Steve is standing on the other side, one hand raised to knock. Tony freezes. Steve’s eyes are wide and Tony watches as they dart down to look at his mouth. He licks his lips.

Steve swallows. “Uh.”

“Yeah,” says Tony breathlessly.

He’s not sure who moves first.

Steve’s mouth is hot on his, and Tony’s hands automatically move to bunch in the fabric of Steve’s shirt, steadying him even as he presses against Steve’s body, and holy shit. _Holy shit_.

“Do you have— _any_ idea—” Steve says roughly through a series of biting kisses. There’s an edge of anger but mostly he sounds frantic, a little wondering.

 _I’ve got a pretty good one_ , is what Tony means to reply, but what comes out instead is a super embarrassing gasping noise, because Steve’s hands are fisted in his hair and it’s making his knees buckle. He smells like coffee. Tony realizes the apartment door is still wide open and wraps one hand in the front of Steve’s shirt, tugging until he stumbles further inside. Unwilling to take his mouth off Steve’s for even a second, Tony fumbles until he hears the door close. “God,” Tony manages. “I am so glad you’re not Mr. Hernandez.”

“What?”

“Nothing, never mind.” He sets his teeth to Steve’s pulse point, right at the hinge of his jaw, and bites down gently. Steve jerks against him once, and then again, when Tony bites harder. “Shit, are you—”

“Yeah,” Steve pants. His fingers move to the zipper on Tony’s coveralls and Tony takes the opportunity to yank on the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it over Steve’s head while he’s distracted.

“Jesus,” Tony says, wide-eyed. “It’s like you’re photoshopped.” Steve’s blush is back. It doesn’t keep him from tugging the zipper down and sliding his hands back up Tony’s chest to push the coveralls off his shoulders.

“Bedroom?” he asks.

Tony stops wriggling his arms out of the sleeves to give him a look. “I don’t know, the walls are thin and my neighbor’s kind of an asshole.”

It startles a laugh out of Steve and Tony grins, making quick work of his own t-shirt and pushing Steve back until they thump against the hallway wall. Steve lets himself be pushed, which. Okay. Fine. This is fine. Then Steve fits his mouth back over Tony’s, shifts a little, and Tony’s thigh slips between the vee of his legs and Tony’s brain short-circuits for a second. This close, he can hear the impossibly quiet noises Steve makes, can feel the vibrations, the way his hips press into Tony’s. Steve’s not silent after all, it turns out. His mouth is a sear of heat against Tony’s and Tony has to pull back for a moment to catch his breath, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. It’s almost unbearably hot in the room, the air heavy between them. They’re both sweating. Tony’s skin feels hypersensitive where it slides against Steve’s.

“Does your apartment not have air conditioning?”

“Haven’t had time to fix it.”

“Wait,” Steve says. Tony waits, though that’s not something he’s ever been particularly good at. “Are you an electrician?”

Tony looks down at the coveralls still clinging to his hips. “More of a mechanic. Engineer. Little bit of everything.”

“Mrs. Nguyen says you’re a disinherited millionaire.”

“Yeah, that too. Well, billionaire,” Tony says distractedly. “Doesn't matter. You were asking about me?”

Steve fixes him with a glare. “You were _ruining my life_.”

Tony smirks. "Glad to hear it. Right back at you.”

Neither of them do much talking after that, not until they’re both undressed and Steve’s pressing Tony down into the mattress. He’s got one big hand wrapped around both of their cocks, the other hand braced on the wall behind Tony’s head, and Tony is coming undone. _It shouldn’t be this good_ , he thinks desperately, wrapping his own hand around Steve’s. This is, at best, a level-three mutual handjob, so why—why is his entire brain shorting out? Steve grinds down, a filthy roll of his hips in the near-darkness of the room. Tony gasps, head thrown back against the pillow and mouth moving soundlessly.

“Are you—are you kidding?” Steve asks. He sounds wrecked. And a little incredulous. “ _Now_ you’re quiet?”

Tony forces his voice to work. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything,” Steve admits. His eyes are searching Tony’s, pupils blown. “Anything, anything, just—”

“I thought about this,” Tony says. The words spill out of him easily, no thought behind them other than the fact that they’re the truth, they’re the truth and Steve should know. “I thought about you— _fuck, Steve_ —all the time. Didn’t even know who you were, but I—” Steve ducks to lick a long stripe up Tony’s neck and Tony breaks off on a moan when he sucks a mark into the skin. “Shit, I thought I was losing my mind, you’re so—”

Steve swears, a bitten-off curse. Tony forces the hand that’s not tangled loosely around Steve’s to unclench from the sheets, fumbling until he can wrap it around the back of Steve’s neck. He tightens it enough to make Steve pull back a little and look him in the eye again. He looks dazed, cheeks flushed and gaze heavy. Sex-drunk. His hand keeps moving between them, fingers tangled with Tony’s, and Tony is about three strokes from coming. He’s determined to make Steve lose it first. It’s not like this is a competition, but Tony is definitely going to win. “Thought about you fucking me, if you could make me make the same noises. Thought about fucking you, too, if I could get you to be loud for me. You were always so quiet—”

“Fuck,” Steve groans. “Jesus, Tony, you—”

“—so annoying,” Tony says, “thought I was never going to sleep again, you _asshole_ —” Steve gasps out a breathless laugh and, hilariously, comes. Tony is going to get right on giving him shit for that as soon as he stops coming, too.

“I’m actually incapable of moving,” Steve informs him a few minutes later, “so don’t read anything into this, but I’m staying here tonight. In your disgustingly hot apartment. With all the… robots.” Tony glances sideways to see Steve taking in the room properly for the first time.

“S’fine,” he says, half asleep already. He pats one of Steve’s large biceps vaguely. “If you wake me up, you’re dead to me.”

“Mmm,” Steve says around a yawn. “I think I could probably make it up to you.”

Tony sinks into sleep before he can tell Steve exactly how amenable he is to that idea. It’s fine. He'll tell him in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> edit 3.8.18 -- I made myself art because this story demanded fake social media accounts. you can see/reblog it [here.](https://mombasas.tumblr.com/post/171683885356/steve-pays-money-for-this-bedroom-so-much-money)


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